GET A LIFE: The truth about lying

Wednesday

Aug 31, 2016 at 12:01 AM

Loretta LaRoche

My mother would not tolerate lies or the use of blame as a way to escape responsibilities for one’s actions. Layer that with a grandmother who considered lying a deadly sin and nuns who could figure out your every move, sometimes before you made one.

Lying seems to have become more acceptable in recent years. As a matter of fact, lying and getting away with it has become an art form. You can use all manner of excuses that were once looked upon as totally unacceptable. If I dared to tell a lie, my mother would begin her FBI routine. “Why did you do that?” I would try to cover up by implicating someone else. “Well, so and so told me to do it.” Her response was always the same, “I don’t care what they told you, I care about what you told me, and you lied.”

My mother also never thought twice about calling the other child’s mother and sharing the story with her. Then I had two parents upset with me. Once I’d been caught lying, it was very difficult not to be cross-examined about everything I was doing, having been deemed untrustworthy. It took a while to regain the trust.

And my mother never forgot anything. She could have been the curator of the Smithsonian Institution.

If you lied to the nuns, you had to go to confession, and say however many Hail Marys and Our Fathers were deemed appropriate. The worst part, however, was that they called your parents and told them you lied. If your parents got a call from one of the nuns about anything inappropriate, it was double the trouble. You would be better off spending the night in a lion’s den.

When some people lie today, they cover it up by denying it completely or by saying their words were misconstrued. This seems to be happening quite frequently in the political arena. They create their own realty around the lie and then have others who back it up. Many celebrities do the same. This behavior is often seen as acceptable by their admirers, but unfortunately it is a very bad example for children, who we all know are incredibly impressionable.

So if you lie, can you regain trust from those you lied to? The answer lies in how you apologize. If the apology is perceived as sincere, you have a better chance of being forgiven, and there is a way to make a sincere apology. You don’t need a public relations firm to make you sound sincere. Just acknowledge what you did wrong, accept responsibility for your actions, make some kind of atonement, ask for forgiveness, and give assurances that you won’t do it again. In the end, the only thing that really matters is whether you keep your word.